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Lasercut Necklace Pendant

Introduction: Lasercut Necklace Pendant

In this tutorial I will be covering how to make a basic wood pendant on the laser cutting machine.

I made it at techshop!!

Materials:

1. Small piece of wood; I usually can find some in the recycle bin at Techshop, either by the laser cutting machines (which tends to be particle board or synthetics) machines or in the wood shop (which often has small pieces of really nice woods)2. laser cutting machine3. glue (I used a glue gun. Use anything that bonds to both wood and metal.)4. Bails or Jumprings (I'll show pictures of those later.)5. Chain for necklace (optional)6. wax or coating (optional)7. Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw

Step 1: Design in Illustrator

This is a simple video of how to design a pendant for the lasercutter.

For more in-depth information on how to use Illustrator you can find some amazing tutorials on youtube.

Step 2: Print and Prepare the Pendant

If you would like to have a shinier (or waterproof) coating, you can use either pure beeswax (as I did) or a spray coat. For spray coats, go to a local hardware store so you can see the full selection of colors they come in. You can make plywood look pretty good with some of these!

Beeswax is safe for kids if they ingest a small amount of it. Unlike mineral oil, it won't cause digestive upset if kids put it in their mouth. Obviously, you don't want a kid to swallow the pendant itself. I'm just saying....

Step 3: Bail Time

Is it weird that I really like the smell of glue guns when they're warming up?? :)(It reminds me of the smell of train sets at christmas when I was a kid.)

Heat up the glue, put some on the back of the bail, and quickly (before it cools) attach it to the pendant. In retrospect I wish I had gotten smaller bails. There are some tea leaf shaped ones that I believe are smaller.

For future projects, I want to measure the size of the bail and incorporate that into my design.

Step 4: Add the Chain

I found these imitation Leather Cord Necklace chains on Amazon. They are black, 18 Inches , have an extension chain and come already with a Lobster Claw Clasp.

So in other words, they're ready to use right away!

Step 5: And You're Done!

And there's your first laser cut necklace!

I plan on experimenting with different materials, sizes, matching earings, coatings, and general designs.

I also want to experiment with adding photographs using resin.

Thanks for reading! Please post any similar projects in my comments section so I can see what great things you're making!